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Zordak writes "According to Law 360, H.R. 845, the 'Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes' (SHIELD) Act of 2013 would require non-practicing entities that lose in patent litigation to pay the full legal costs of accused infringers. The new bill (PDF) would define a 'non-practicing entity' as a plaintiff that is neither the original inventor or assignee of a patent, and that has not made its own 'substantial investment in exploiting the patent.' The bill is designed to particularly have a chilling effect on 'shotgun' litigation tactics by NPEs, in which they sue numerous defendants on a patent with only a vague case for infringement. Notably, once a party is deemed to be an NPE early in the litigation, they will be required to post a bond to cover the defendants' litigation costs before going forward."

Why am I having a hard time believing this is real and has a hope of being passed into law?

Because you haven't realized that if this was passed then large companies who've stolen an idea from a non-corporation inventor before he/she has obtained funding to manufacturer his/her idea will use the threat of large-company-size legal bills to browbeat the independent inventor into forgoing a suit and settling for peanuts instead of what they would have paid if they had to license the invention from another large corporation.

Loser Pays applies to virtually the entire rest of the galaxy, and, while not perfect, it is way better than the Loonie Tunes US approach. Here in the UK, it applies to both criminal and civil law in 100% of cases, unless the judge decides the loser was partly to blame - eg deliberately made himself look guilty to attract a law suit.